Pitchfork Forkcast: Video Premiere: Múm: "They Made Frogs Smoke 'Til They Exploded"

Video Premiere: Múm: "They Made Frogs Smoke 'Til They Exploded"

There's some question as to what's become of Icelandic electro-twee outfit Múm since the departure of Kristín Anna Valtýsdóttir. Her soft, cooing voice came to define the group when they lit out in a more song-oriented direction after their mostly-instrumental 2000 debut, Yesterday Was Dramatic - Today Is OK. In June, we heard the early track "Dancing Behind My Eyelids" from the forthcoming Go Go Smear The Poison Ivy, and now comes a video for a song to be released on both an upcoming single and the album proper. "They Made Frogs Smoke 'Til They Exploded", in title and content, finds Múm comfortably ensconced in kiddieland, where they've been all along. But the massed singalong vocals, like their own northern latitude version of the Polyphonic Spree, combined with the jamboree harmonica, projects a lighter image of the band, one less hermetic and potentially more fun.

The accompanying video by Ingibjörg Birgisdóttir, however, a sharp melding of hand illustration and flash animation, brings out a creepiness only hinted at in the music. Smiling faces are drawn, features mutate, and then faces are pulled apart; kittens with vampire teeth are dismembered and spout red droplets of blood before being sewn up again; finally, a few youngins wave bye-bye. It's an intriguing series of contrasts that bodes well for the new Múm.

[From the "They Made Frogs Smoke 'Til They Exploded" single; due 08/28/07; and Go Go Smear The Poison Ivy; due 9/25/07; both from FatCat]

Thu: 05-15-08: 04:15 PM CDT
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